Dr. Péter Balázs: Guide to the archives of Hungary (Budapest, 1976)

Hajdú-Bihar Megyei Levéltár (Haj dú-Bihar County Archives)

As to its organization, Hajdu-Bihar County Archives consists of three sections: the city, the county and the financial-organisatory sections. The city section is in charge of the archival groups of Debrecen city and besides some others, like the Debrecen schools, universities, guilds, trade corporations, associations, church organs, families, private persons, collections, the higher organs of administration and jurisdiction, the 1919 Republic of Councils, the National Commissions and Screening Commissions after the liberation and the duplicates of registers. The county section is responsible for the records of the former Bihar and Haj du counties, the present HajduBihar county, the Hajdu boroughs, the villages, the organs of state administration and jurisdiction, the schools of the counties, the public corporations, the economic organs and the associations after 1950. The mentioned two sections are busy in the usual archival tasks. The financial-organisational section is in charge of the administration, the duplicates of registers and the photo laboratory. The oldest record of the Archives is a copy of a charter dated from 1294. The most ancient original dates from 1311. The number of charters prior to Mohács totals 92. Of the records of the higher administrative organs those of the Debrecen District of Provincial Commissariat are the most valuable (1796-1849), illustrating the feeding of the army, the collecting the war tax and the recruiting. Among the archival groups of the municipal counties and cities the journals of the nobilitary assembly of Bihar county from 1688 are the most remarkable, enabling one to study the political activity of the county, the economic and social conditions. The records of the Hajdu district assemblies (from 1605) illustrate the life and strivings of the autonomous community of the six privileged boroughs. The journals of the Debrecen city council (from 1547) reveal the stratification of the burgesses, the financial and property aims of the city magistracy. We keep the city records from 1294. In the secret archives of Debrecen city the privileges, the deeds of city possessions and the Turkish records are the most notable. In the bourgeois period the records of the Lord Lieutenant of Hajdu county and Debrecen city mirror the activity of the leading political personage of both municipalities, furnishing a rich material to the study of the working class movement as well. Other sources of the history of political